Five people have been isolated and tested for the deadly Ebola virus at the Leicester Royal Infirmary - but hospital chiefs are reassuring the public none have proved positive.

The patients, who may have been referred by their GP because of specific symptoms or who could have turned up at A&E with a fever, were tested as a matter of course.

As the LRI has an infectious diseases unit it is one of the hospitals which can deal with potential Ebola cases and testing is automatic should any suspicions arise.

One case - considered the most serious - involved a person who had returned from west Africa and was suffering with a high fever but as with the rest tests revealed it was not Ebola.

A spokesman said: “We would stress testing for Ebola in certain circumstances is done as standard practice and NHS trusts up and down the country are doing exactly the same thing.

“There is absolutely no suspicion of Ebola being in the county. Because we are one of the receiving centres with an infectious disease department if anyone from the area comes to us, perhaps after seeing their GP or through A&E and they have specific symptoms then we will test for Ebola as a matter of routine.

“The patients are kept in isolation as a precaution. Up to October of last year there had been four cases and since then there has been one more. None have turned out to be the virus.”

When testing for the disease samples are sent to the national laboratory at Porton Down and results can be returned within 24 hours.

If anyone did prove positive, procedure dictates they would be transferred to a more specialised unit at the Royal Free Hospital in London.

Currently a British nurse, Pauline Cafferkey, is being treated there after returning from Sierra Leone. Her condition is described as critical but stable.

Ebola virus disease (EVD), formerly known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever, is a severe, often fatal illness in humans.

The virus is transmitted to people from wild animals and spreads in the human population through human-to-human transmission.

The average EVD case fatality rate is around 50%. Case fatality rates have varied from 25% to 90% in past outbreaks.

The first EVD outbreaks occurred in remote villages in Central Africa, near tropical rainforests, but the most recent outbreak in west Africa has involved major urban as well as rural areas.

Community engagement is key to successfully controlling outbreaks. Good outbreak control relies on applying a package of interventions, namely case management, surveillance and contact tracing, a good laboratory service, safe burials and social mobilisation.

Early supportive care with rehydration, symptomatic treatment improves survival. There is as yet no licensed treatment proven to neutralise the virus but a range of blood, immunological and drug therapies are under development.

There are currently no licensed Ebola vaccines but 2 potential candidates are undergoing evaluation.

The Ebola virus causes an acute, serious illness which is often fatal if untreated. Ebola virus disease (EVD) first appeared in 1976 in two simultaneous outbreaks, one in Nzara, Sudan, and the other in Yambuku, Democratic Republic of Congo. The latter occurred in a village near the Ebola River, from which the disease takes its name.

The current outbreak in west Africa, (first cases notified in March 2014), is the largest and most complex Ebola outbreak since the Ebola virus was first discovered in 1976. There have been more cases and deaths in this outbreak than all others combined. It has also spread between countries starting in Guinea then spreading across land borders to Sierra Leone and Liberia, by air (one traveller only) to Nigeria, and by land (one traveller) to Senegal.

The most severely affected countries, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia have very weak health systems, lacking human and infrastructural resources, having only recently emerged from long periods of conflict and instability. On August 8 2014 the WHO Director-General declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.